Mass Affected Discontinued
by Kinvarus
Summary: I get sent to the Mass Effect universe, along with my non-gaming sister. Will our presence help Shepard stop the coming Reaper threat or doom the galaxy to extinction? Only time will tell. Begins 1 year before the events of ME1.  Re-Launched under the new title Mass Affected: Reborn
1. Chapter 1: Introduction

**A/N: Hey, everyone this is the first story I've decided to share on FanFiction so I hope you enjoy. Any thoughts/feedback/suggestions I would love to get be it good, bad or indifferent.**

**I've been thinking of doing a Mass Effect story for a while now just never got round to doing it but after reading Masses to Masses by iNf3ctioNZ and the Mass Vexations series by Herr Wozzeck I decided to crack on and work on it, so if you haven't read them yet you really should since they are both awesome.**

**This first story takes place a year before the events of ME1 but will continue into it and ME2 eventually.  
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**And now the disclaimer: I do not and sadly never will own Mass Effect, BioWare or EA, although if I did that would be awesome. With that said I hope you enjoy this story.**

BEGIN RECORDING…

_Okay so let me just check this…hang on a second…aw damn it! I think my Omni-Tool is busted again, stupid piece of crap…Hey Tali I thought you said you fixed this thing?_

….

RECORDING STOPPED.

BEGIN RECORDING…

_OK so second times the charm, here we go again, the little icon is up there so I guess it's recording so uh…yeah. This is my story and it's…well interesting to say the least, unbelievable at the most and downright bizarre in the middle, but such is my life nowadays._

_I guess I'll give you a little bit of background info before we begin. My name is Robert Kane, I'm 25 and I'm not the tallest guy in the world at 5'7, my eyes are hazel and my hair is dirty blonde in colour. I was born in London, England; I have an older sister Ellie and an IQ of 193. I graduated school at 15 and spent the next 3 years at Oxford University studying Criminal Psychology. After graduating at 18 I became a police officer, where after spending the mandatory two years on patrol became a detective. _

_When I wasn't investigating murders and getting inside the minds of killers I'm a gamer and a bit of a musician, I sing a little bit and play the guitar, other than that there isn't much more to tell really._

_My sister Eleanor is five years older than me and we've been really close since our parents died when I was 15. She's smaller than me, standing at 5'3 and her hair is black, like our fathers used to be. Ellie is a surgeon, one of the best in my opinion but then again I'm not a surgeon so I wouldn't really know.  
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_The only difference between Ellie and me is our accents. Since she was born and spent the first five years in Los Angeles she has an American accent, like our parents. I on the other hand was born in London and speak with a British accent, which was strange growing up let me tell you._

_Anyway my story begins on January 17__th__ 2182…well actually that's a lie…sort of, it actually started a good 172 years before that (See I told you it was going to be interesting and unbelievable didn't I?) _

_OK so it actually begins in London and the year is 2011 that was when I found myself in a place that in our universe only existed in a series of Video Games called Mass Effect…_

**Kane Residence, London; England**

**15****th**** July 2011**

With a sigh I opened the door and entered my home, heading into the kitchen and tossing my keys and the files from work onto the table before heading upstairs and changing out of my suit and into my Los Angeles Kings jersey, I'd been a hockey fan since the first time my father had taken me to a game, when I was six. And since both my parents and Ellie were born in LA the Kings became my team, since we always visited the rest of the family in California every year.

As I put it on I caught sight of the pendant hanging around my neck and took it in my hand. It was a silver tribal pendant with a blue crystal embedded in it. Ellie and I both had one, although they differed slightly in design. They had been given to us by our parents when we were children.

I traced my finger over the design before glancing over at the picture of the girl on my dresser. Her name was Kirsten. We met the first day of university and hit it off almost immediately. It turned out she was the singer in a band with a few friends, and was also studying psychology although hers was in Clinical psychology while mine was in Criminal, soon after we were talking about music and the fact I was a guitarist came up, a few months later we were dating.

I shook my head out of the memory and headed over to the PC, wanting to finish my Mass Effect 1 run, having decided to play through the two in preparation for Mass Effect 3 next year. I actually lost track of how long I had been playing but I heard Ellie come in and call out to me, entering my room shortly after I replied.

"Hey Ellie." I grinned as I shot the Krogan charging at me.

"You're playing Mass Effect again?" she chuckled.

"It's a great game, besides ME3 is out next year and I want a save ready."

Ellie laughed as she hugged me "So how was work?"

I sighed "Didn't get any new leads, this guy…he's either a new form of crazy or a genius, either way I'm not in his head yet and I can't figure out what his next move will be, how was your day?."

"Had an open heart surgery and someone who came into the ER with a shard of glass in his hand, nothing big. And don't worry I'm sure you'll get the guy soon."

"I hope so." I muttered.

Ellie left a little while after that while I kept playing I'd got to Noveria when I decided to quit the game and went downstairs to hang out with Ellie until it was time to call it a night.

I awoke the next morning and stumbled downstairs and outside to collect the mail. There were a few usual letters and a parcel addressed to Ellie and I. With a shrug I took them inside, in time to see Ellie walk downstairs already dressed and ready for work.

"Slept in your clothes again I see." She laughed, pointing at my crumpled up jeans and creased Kings Jersey.

I just shrugged "Guess I was pretty tired. There's a parcel here addressed to both of us." I replied.

"You can open it." Ellie replied "I'll make us some toast."

"Uh huh." I replied as I tossed the rest of the mail on the table and studied the parcel; it was in a plain brown box and didn't have a return address on it, with a shrug I carefully opened the package.

Inside was a small silver box, one of those ones that looked like the silver money boxes you give children at their christenings, except without a slot at the top for money to go inside.

As I turned the object in my hands I noticed an indentation along one of the sides, which gave the impression that the box could be opened. Turning it around couldn't see any kind of lock or latch. Rotating the box some more I spotted a glimmer of blue on two of the sides, now that I think back on it I have no idea how I missed them…anyway I flipped the box over and examined it more closely.

It seemed to be made of some sort of blue crystal and was smooth to the touch; the scary thing though was that both the crystals were identical to mine and Ellie's pendants. Curious I pulled the pendant out from under my Kings Jersey and looked at it, yep exactly the same.

"El you better get in here." I called out.

"What is it?" Ellie asked as she walked in.

"It's that package, this was inside it." I replied as I handed it to her, watching as she looked at it, then at the pendant I was clutching.

"Is that…?" she began to ask.

"Yep and I'm pretty sure the other one on there is the same as yours."

Ellie handed the box back to me and ran upstairs, returning a few minutes later with her own pendant and compared it with the other design on the box and gasped when it too was the same.

I felt the box start to vibrate in my hands and glanced down at it, seeing the crystal start to glow and realised that the crystal on my pendant was doing the same. I glanced over at Ellie and saw that her pendant was glowing as well. I dropped the box to the ground and tried to pull off the pendant, as Ellie tossed hers to the floor but before I could remove it from around my neck the blue light from the box got brighter and brighter to the point it was blinding, then everything went dark.

When I came to I found myself in an area filled with bright white light all around me for as far as the eye could see. I'll be honest I'm not the religious sort but I swore I was dead. I ran over to Ellie who was a across from me and dropped down to her side, she was unconscious but breathing.

I stood up and looked around, seeing nothing but the white light. Where was I? How did I get here? What was going to happen next? Were the three main thoughts I had running around in my head.

"Hello!" I shouted, not getting reply.

After a few moments though I felt a presence behind me and turned to see what looked to be my parents standing a few feet behind me, watching me. _OK so maybe I am dead. _I thought.

"No you are not dead child." My 'Mother' said.

"Are you sure because I think I am, I mean I'm standing in the middle of a white…room for lack of a better term, talking to my dead parents."

The man smiled "We are not your parents; we are only using their image to communicate with you."

I blinked, this was getting weirder and weirder "Oookaaay, so if you're not my parents then who are you?"

"My name is Azeriea and this is Reyoln." The women looking liked my mother answered "And we are two of the last surviving Protheans."

I blinked a few times before laughing "OK so I am dead…well either that or dying , dreaming or lost my mind because the Protheans aren't real, they're a fictional species from a Video Game." I answered.

"This is true in this reality." Reyoln said "However in our reality the events and history of the video game you call Mass Effect are very real."

I stared at the two before folding my arms across my chest "OK I'll play along, if you are the last of the Protheans why are you here?"

Azeriea was the one who answered "As I am sure you know the Reapers were almost successful in wiping our species from existence 50,000 years ago."

I nodded, still not buying any of this "Yeah, everyone except the scientists on Ilos."

"That is correct." Azeriea nodded "However Ilos was not the only Prothean planet the Reapers were not aware of; there was another, an unnamed world hidden on the edge of the known Galaxy, accessible through only one Relay."

"Why did nobody know about this world? Especially the Reapers?" I asked.

"We discovered the Relay by accident while exploring an unexplored region of space and travelled through it. On the other side was a single planet. We decided to use this planet as a place to conduct more hazardous research." Reyoln continued.

I raised an eyebrow "Hazardous research?"

"Yes. As a result we used several ships to move the Relay away from known space lanes and hid it inside a nebula. Only those of us who worked on the planet knew of its location. When the Reapers attacked we received the message through a beacon and remained hidden. It was clear that we would not win the war and with no way of knowing about Ilos we stayed away, venturing out with the few ships we had every few years. By the time the Reapers had returned to Dark Space only one ship and five of our race remained." Azeriea added before Reyoln took over again.

"We spent the next several years continuing our research until we completed it."

I had to admit I was starting to believe their story but I was curious about this mystery research of theirs so I asked about it.

"It started as research into designing portable Mass Relay's for use on ships but after the Reaper invasion we started looking into rebuilding our technology and theory's on space and time, hoping to find a way to go back and save our race from extinction, but we failed." Azeriea spoke, the sadness still in her voice.

"However during one test we inadvertently opened a rift to this reality and after some research discovered that the Reapers did not exist here."

I nodded finally catching up "And I'm guessing you discovered the Mass Effect games too."

"Yes." Reyoln replied.

"OK but that still doesn't explain what you're doing here now." I replied "Wherever here is."

Azeriea smiled "We are in your subconscious mind; your sister is as well, although we are preventing her from waking up just yet so that we could speak to you."

I blinked "Okay, why and why?" I asked

After exchanging a confused glace the two Protheans returned their attention to me. "We are here in your subconscious mind to communicate with you as for the second why…" Azeriea paused and glanced over at Reyoln who nodded.

"We need your help."

I chuckled "My help?"

"Yes. We looked at many people but chose you as the best candidate to help prevent the Reapers from destroying all life in the galaxy again." Azeriea continued.

"Me? But I'm nobody, surely you had better people."

"It is true there were many people who had played the games and know what is to come but there we did not know them as well as you and the type of person you are."

"What does that mean?" I asked, watching as the two exchanged another look.

"You are smart and have a keen analytical mind among other things." Reyoln answered.

"OK second question: How you are here?"

"Our research lasted many years after the Reapers attack and involved several other projects, one of which was the box you opened. It contains many things, including our consciousness, which is how we are communicating with you now."

It was then that I remembered something "Wait if you created the box, then you also created my pendant I'm guessing." And saw the two of them smile.

"Yes we did."

"But Ellie and I have had these since we were children." I replied.

"We know, as we said our project lasted a long time and opening the rift to this reality was one of the first things we accomplished after the Reaper war and after discovering the Mass Effect games we studied your reality and after choosing you we returned to our time and researched…."

"Time travel." I interrupted "It had to have been the only way for you to have sent the pendants back."

Azeriea smiled "Yes, we could not reverse time in our universe however we could here and as such returned and…possessed for lack of a better time your parents to make sure that you would receive the pendant. However after we saw your parents die it was clear that we would have to create another pendant for your sister, otherwise you would not leave…"

"Wait." I said interrupting them "You saw my parent's death? Yet you didn't prevent it?"

"We could not, to do so would change the person you would become." Reyoln answered.

"The person I would…what the hell are you talking about?" I yelled.

"Your parent's death has changed you, as did the one you called Kirsten. You are a stronger person now as a result; if they had not died you would be a different person."

I supposed I couldn't argue with them on their logic "OK so what do you need my help with?"

"While some things in these Mass Effect games are similar, real life may not turn out the same way. What happened to our race 50,000 years ago has already happened, there is no way to undo it, and this Commander Shepard may not be able to stop them, not without your help."

OK now I'll admit as cool as that sounded hearing that shifted my belief firmly back to the 'This is not happening' stage. "So what I'm some kind of…chosen one?" I laughed.

"No, you are simply someone who will have more knowledge of what may happen and how to counteract those events." Reyoln replied.

I sighed and looked over to Ellie "What about Ellie? She knows nothing about Mass Effect; I don't think she'll go."

"Then you will have to convince her or leave her behind, the fate of an entire universe could depend on it." Reyoln said.

"No pressure then." I muttered as I walked over to her and knelt down "Wake her up."

**Ellie's POV**

I woke up in a strange room fill with white light looking up at my little brother, but there was something different about him, a determination yet somewhat sadness in his eyes, as if he may be about to lose something.

"Rob?" I asked as I sat up "What happened? Where are we?"

I watched as Robert laughed and rubbed his hand across the back of his neck, something he always did when he was nervous "You probably won't believe me." He replied "We uh…do you remember that box?"

"Of course I do." I replied.

"Well it put us inside my subconscious mind." He replied.

I laughed at that "Sure it did…although it does explain the white I always knew there was nothing inside that head of yours."

"Hardy har har very funny." He drawled. It was then I froze when I saw out parents standing behind Robert. I guess he realised I had spotted them.

"It's not them." He said.

"Of course it's not them, they're dead." I replied "It's your memory of them if we're in your subconscious mind, which I don't believe for one second by the way, it's impossible."

"Hey I thought the same thing at first. But when I said it wasn't them I mean they're not a memory either." He replied as he held out his hand and lifted me up before motioning to our parents.

"Ellie meet Reyoln and Azeriea." He said, the two nodding at me.

"Reyoln and Azeriea?" I asked, totally confused.

"Their Protheans." Robert answered.

I frowned at them and my brother "Protheans? I've heard that name before haven't I?" I asked, watching as my brother nodded.

"How much do you remember about Mass Effect?" he asked.

"That it was a game about some machines that wiped out all life in the galaxy or something." I replied, still confused "What does that have to do with them?"

"Well the machines that wiped out life in that Galaxy were called the Reapers. In the game the race that existed before the humans, Turians and so on in the game time were the Protheans." Robert answered.

I glared at him, then at our parents and back to him again "So you expect me to believe that those two are actually fictional aliens from a game series?"

"Fictional in our reality yes, but real in another one, how the guys at BioWare just happened to get it right I don't know but the fact is they are real and they are really standing right there."

I just stared at my brother "This is crazy Rob! Are you even listening to yourself? It's just shock or something from that box or stress brought on by the case you're working."

"I thought the same thing El, but think about it would both of us be dreaming the same thing, at the same time?" he asked me. And I had to admit, it did seem unlikely that both of us would have the same dream, on the other hand neither were fictional aliens so who knows…

This was when the "Alien" who looked like our mother spoke "We understand that this is a lot for you to take in, but your brother speaks the truth." She said as her, the man looking like my father and Robert began explaining everything to me.

**Robert's POV**

I winced as Ellie yelled at me "This is insane! You can't seriously believe this?" she said, causing me to shrug.

"Look I know you don't buy it and since you never played the games you don't grasp it on the level that I do but trust me when I say that everything they have said, in relation to the way I know them to be from the game checks out. All of it."

She laughed "So you really believe that these fictional aliens came all the way here just to choose you as a…as a saviour?"

"Well when you put it like that…" I muttered. "But look at everything they have said, even you have to admit our pendants and the box on its own, how do you explain that? That is just arrived on our doorstep today of all days and then this happens. What are the odds of that?"

I saw Ellie hesitate, knowing that even she would have to admit that that was one hell of a coincidence.

"But it's just…" she stuttered.

"I know." I replied with a grin and watched as realisation passed over her face, a sadness forming soon after.

"You're going with them aren't you." She said, although it was more a statement then a question.

I nodded "I think I am, look I know you don't believe it and the way I see it is if their right then I'll be in the future doing something unique that I never thought possible and if not then we'll probably wake up and nothing will have changed."

Ellie nodded "And what if, and it's a huge if…what if this is real? And you really do go into that other…world, universe whatever and you can't come back?"

I nodded "It's a possibility but what was the one thing that Mum and Dad taught us?"

Ellie sighed "That if we have the opportunity and means to help someone that we should. It's the reason I became a doctor and you a cop."

I nodded "Exactly, they raised us to be good people, if all of this is real then how can I turn my back on an entire universe if they need help?"

Ellie actually smiled then "I guess you can't. You've always been willing to help other people; I guess I shouldn't be surprised."

I nodded "I really don't want to leave you behind but..." I began but felt my throat close up.

"I know Rob." Ellie replied, tears in her eyes.

Despite the fact Reyoln and Azeriea had vanished to give Ellie and I a minute to talk I felt their presence again and turned around to see them standing where they had been a few feet away.

"You have made a decision." Azeriea said.

I nodded "I have." I answered as I took towards them "If what you say is true and that my being there could help stop the Reapers I can't sit back and do nothing about it."

The two Protheans smiled "We knew we had made the right choice when we chose you." Reyoln said.

"What about your sister?" Azeriea asked, looking over at Ellie.

I turned to look at her as well, waiting as a few minutes passed, knowing that this was probably the last time I was going to see her.

"I…I'm going too." She said shocking not only myself, but Reyoln and Azeriea as well.

"What?" I gasped as she walked over to me.

"You're my little brother and the only family I have, I can't lose you too." She whispered as she pulled me into a hug "If you really are going then I am too."

"Thank you." I whispered back before pulling out of the hug and looked over at Reyoln "So what happens now?" I asked.

"You will wake up in your home, just place both your pendants over their matching crystals on the box and a rift will open that will take you to our dimension."

With that the white room started to fade away and soon I found myself waking up on the floor again and glancing over, seeing Ellie come too as well. We both looked at each other and then at the box.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" I asked her.

"Are you?" she countered.

I hesitated a moment as I looked around our home and then to the box, the gamer in me jumping in anticipation a large grin making it was across my face "Yeah. Yeah I am."

"Then I am too." Ellie replied as she placed her pendant against her crystal design with me doing the same on my side. True to form the box started glowing and what looked to be a larger form of the Biotic singularity formed. I exchanged another look with Ellie before picking up the box and walking towards it, with Ellie joining me.

"Well here goes nothing..." I muttered as we stepped through.


	2. Chapter 2: New Beginnings

**Hello Everyone, sorry for taking a while to upload this next chapter, real life and the fact I re-wrote this chapter a dozen times over didn't help much.**

**Thank you to all the people who put this on their watch list, I will endeavour to get updates out quicker in the future.**

**My buddy S4pphi has a story up called Side Effect which has a different take on the whole SI thing which I can recommend, you can find it here: .net/s/7195327/1/ if you're interested.**

**Oh and sorry about the multiple messages about a new chapter, despite the fact it looked good in the Doc Manager it kept showing up unformatted or in complete bold everytime, technology eh?  
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**Finally as usual I don't own Bioware or Mass Effect, just the OC's I use.**

**With all that out of the way on with the story…**

Chapter 2: New Beginnings.

**Location: Unnamed Prothean Planet**

In what seemed to be the blink of an eye we were no longer at home but inside an advanced looking lab. Glancing around I could see various computer terminals, a VI interface and not one but two Prothean beacons and they were definitely bigger than I expected them to be, the tops almost reaching the celling, and it got me wondering how they got them inside.

"Wow." Ellie muttered from beside me "This is amazing."

I could only nod in agreement as I walked over to what appeared to be a VI terminal, similar to Vigil's one on Ilos. As I got nearer to it the VI activated and Reyoln's digital image appeared.

"Welcome to our reality Robert and Eleanor, I'm sure you have many questions, all the information you need to know is stored in the computers here. I am sure you have noticed the two beacons. We have uploaded all the information you will require to survive here into them. The beacon on the left is for you Eleanor, inside it contains all the medical knowledge we could acquire on the species of this galaxy."

Ellie looked over at it then to me with a sceptical look on her face.

"If he says it does then it probably does." I answered with a shrug.

"How does it work?" Ellie asked me.

"Assuming it works the same as in the game just walk up to it; it'll pull you into the air and download the knowledge into your brain." I answered, watching as she looked over at the device and then back to me again, before slowly walking towards it.

As she got close to it the beacon started glowing green before pulling Ellie into the air, before either of us could react it lowered her to the ground, where she dropped to her knees, clutching her head.

"Ellie?" I asked as I rushed to her side "You okay?"

She remained silent for a few minutes, with her eyes tightly shut before finally opening them and glancing over at me, her eyes full of amazement.

"Oh my god Rob that was…unbelievable. I saw…it's hard to describe what I saw but I know things now, things about all these races I didn't even know existed, even things about our own species I didn't know before I…I need some time to process this."

I nodded "But you're sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine." She smiled.

I turned back to look at Reyoln's VI "So I take it the one on the right is for me?"

"Yes, your beacon contains the vision of our destruction that was transmitted through the beacons as well as the cypher to understand them, basic weapons training as well as psychological profiles on the major species inhabiting the galaxy." The VI answered.

"Well okay then." I muttered, figuring that that was all I would need in terms of helping Shepard.

With a nod I walked over to the beacon and felt it pulling me towards it once it lit up before I was lifted into the air. At first nothing happened but then I felt a small tingle inside my head before images and words flashed across my vision.

I winced as imaged of Humans, Turians, Volus, Hanar and many other species appeared and vanished in the blink of an eye. And then finally the vision I had seen countless times during my Mass Effect runs, images of the Reapers annihilating the Protheans and extinguishing all life in the galaxy. It seemed to last an eternity and I was starting to think that the beacon would never release me, but finally the beacon shut down and I was dropped to the floor.

I clutched my head as it throbbed and I could feel my mind adjusting to all the new information in there.

"Rob?" I heard a voice say to me, although it seemed to be very quiet and muffled, although it got louder a few minutes later.

"Hey? Are you okay?" Ellie asked me.

"Yeah, yeah I'm good." I answered as I slowly got to my feet "That was…interesting."

Ellie shook her head "I still can't believe that we're here, or that we gave up so much, our lives, our family, our jobs, everything."

I watched as she started pacing the room and looked around, suddenly feeling guilty about dragging her all the way out here.

"You know I could probably figure out how to open that portal again and send you back if you want."

Ellie stopped and turned to face me, a small smile on her face "I know you would Rob, but I said I'd come here and here I am; besides some of these species are fascinating, at least from a medical perspective. But what are we going to do now?"

I walked over to one of the computers and started typing on the holographic keyboard "Well according to this it's January 17th 2182, the attack on Eden Prime won't occur until next year. So first we should go through these computers and brush up on our history and get back to civilisation, find a place to live and jobs." I answered.

"I'm getting my own place though. It was bad enough having to stay with you back in our time." Ellie replied.

"Jeez I let you crash with me when your pipes burst and that's the thanks I get? Charming, I'll remember that for next time." I smiled.

We spent the next several hours studying up on the history of the galaxy, although for me most of it was covered in the game and the books, so I left Ellie reading and after finding a map of the facility and a datapad, downloaded it and decided to explore a little.

The map showed that the majority of the facility was underground and consisted of one large central hub containing the base entrance, living area, control room and hanger bay. With five more buildings to the North, South, East and West, all interconnected with long passageways.

The walls were shiny metallic silver with bluish/white lights illuminating the hallways. To the North of the Central Hub as I called it were the research labs, the Western building held the power distribution section, the South housed the computer mainframes and the Eastern building was labelled as the Production Facility.

I remained in the Central Hub and headed for the living areas. They were mostly what you would expect. Numerous rooms filled with individual rooms, some with single beds and others with larger double beds for couples and what I guessed was a mess hall where everyone gathered to eat meals and talk when not working before heading towards the laboratories to the north.

The doors opened to reveal a large reception area, with doors to the north, east and west, each of them labelled. The western door was labelled Weapons Lab, the north Bio Lab and the east Technical lab.

My first destination was of course the Tech lab and although there was a lot of cool stuff there, I had no idea what any of it did so playing it safe I left it alone, although I would definitely be studying it all eventually.

I went to the bio lab next although unlike the Tech lab, which had been full of toys, the bio lab was pretty much empty apart from what looked to be a large gas chamber in the far corner of the room, with a small window to see through, or look out of when inside.

I walked over to it and looked through the glass. The inside was large enough for someone to fit into with a little moving space with what looked like a futuristic looking alien dentist's chair in the centre of the room. Finally there were several holes in the floor and ceiling, which I could tell by following the pipes I could see led to more piping outside the chamber.

I spotted another VI terminal and activated it, wanting to know what the chamber was for, although I was surprised when it was Azeriea's form that appeared and not Reyoln's as I had expected.

"Hello Robert." The VI said as it came online "I see you have made it to the Biological Lab."

"Yeah." I replied "I'm just curious, what's this chamber for?"

"The chamber is designed to expose people to what you call Element Zero."

I glanced over at the chamber, a small grin forming on my face as my mind started filling in the blacks "To create Biotics I would assume."

"Yes, what you call Biotics our race mastered centuries ago and knowing the benefits of such abilities perfected ways of accessing the element zero without the need for technology, however not all members of our race had the nodules in our bodies, so our scientists began studying ways of creating those nodules safely in those who did not have them."

I turned my gaze back to the VI "We're you successful?" I asked.

"After several long years of research yes, this chamber however is configured to be used by humans." The VI answered.

"Humans?" I repeated.

"Yes, once we discovered your reality and decided to bring someone from there here we began reconfiguring the chamber to work on human physiology on the assumption that having the abilities provided by Element Zero exposure would assist in the battle with the Reapers, if the individual of course chose to go through with the procedure." Azeriea's VI answered.

Now I will admit that I was pretty much ready to jump straight into the thing and do it, because hey who doesn't want to have Biotics right? Luckily I refrained from that since I got the impression that there was probably a catch, I mean there always is right?

"It can't be that simple though, there must be risks."

"There are. Although creating the nodules of Element Zero in the body is a simple thing to do, allowing someone to tap into them and use them naturally without the use of technology requires several alterations to the nervous system. If you are considering it I can say that it is highly unlikely that anything will go wrong, but the risk is always there."

I nodded as I glanced back at the chamber, mentally weighing up the options, although I was brought out of my thoughts when I heard a voice behind me.

"I thought I'd find you here." Ellie said as she entered the lab. "I see you found the biotic chamber too."

I spun around to face her "You knew about it?"

Ellie nodded "It was included in that beacon download and once I knew about it and what you're like I wanted to get down here."

"What I'm like?" I repeated with a grin.

"Yes, you and I both know your considering going in that thing to get the cool powers and don't even think about denying it."

I just grinned in reply "So I'm guessing you know about the whole nervous system modification thing."

Ellie nodded "If we were back on Earth…our Earth I would never have thought it was possible but they've managed to pull it off. From what knowledge I have it should work in theory and they have Nano machines to repair the damage if anything does happen to go wrong."

"That's good enough for me." I grinned as I practically ran into the chamber, watching as the door hissed shut behind me.

"OK Rob." Ellie said through an intercom "Sit in the chair, the restraints will lock around you to prevent you from moving and you'll be injected with something to put you out. Then Element Zero will be released into the chamber and injected into you as well to ensure they are formed properly. In the next stage the machines will begin adjusting your nervous system. The whole process should take twelve hours or more." She paused and looked at me with concern "Are you sure you want to do this?"

"Hell yes I am." I chuckled as I hopped into the chair.

With a shake of her head I watched Ellie push a few buttons on a console and heard a hum as the chamber came to life. True to her word the restraints snapped around me and held me in place before a syringe popped up out of nowhere and injected me in the arm.

I then heard another hiss, like air being vented into or out of the room and saw small flecks of blue filling into the room and assumed it was the Element Zero. Then again I was feeling light headed so it could have been the drugs kicking in and before I knew it I was out cold.


	3. Chapter 3: The 1st Day of Our New Lives

**Hello everyone, sorry for the delay in getting this chapter out. With real life and the Star Wars The Old Republic beta keeping me busy over the last few weeks I haven't had much time to write anything but I am back, plus with Christmas and TOR coming out soon I wanted to get another chapter out for you.**

**Thank you all for your favourites and reviews, since I try to answer every point you guys make I've setup a my forum for the story including a thread for responses which you can find here: .net/forum/Mass_Affected/101152/ If you want to read them I will keep the replies as spoiler free as I can for you.**

**As usual I still don't own Bioware or EA, with that said on with the story.**

**Chapter Three: The First Day of Our New Lives.**

I awoke to a bright light shining into my eyes and snapped them shut again.

"Ow." I groaned as I slowly sat up.

"Are you okay?" Ellie asked as she ran over to check on me.

"Besides the fact I was just blinded by those lights I'm fine." I replied "How did it go?"

"It didn't." Ellie answered.

"What?" I asked, opening my eyes.

"I'm sorry Rob, the chamber did what it was supposed to do but the nodules never formed neither Azeriea or myself know why."

"Well that sucks." I muttered "It didn't do anything else did it?" I asked, watching as Ellie shook her head.

"No, you've been out for a few hours and I've been scanning you, you're the same as you were when you went in there."

"Ah well that's something at least." I said as I stood up, following Ellie as we left the medical areas and headed back to the central chamber. "So what have you been doing during my little nap?"

"I've been reading through the history of this place, it really is fascinating." Ellie answered with a smile "To think of all the times humans on Earth have wondered about life in the galaxy, know we know there is, at least in this universe and we're going to meet them."

I smiled at the excitement in her voice "Just remember to play it cool when we get back to civilisation remember the humans here know aliens exist."

Ellie nodded "Your right I'll try."

"Have you thought about what we're going to do when we leave here, job wise?"

"I think trying to join C-Sec would be best for me, I am a cop after all, and you're a doctor so I would imagine a med clinic or hospital for you." I answered.

"Well duh." Ellie said with a roll of her eyes "No Rob I was thinking of becoming a chief."

"Ha! You couldn't cook to save your life." I muttered under my breath.

"What was that?" Ellie asked, glaring at me.

"Nothing." I quickly replied "But speaking of food I'd kill for a burger." I added as we entered the mess hall, already seeing what looked like rice in bowls on one of the tables.

"I got hungry and I knew you'd be coming around soon so I made us some, Azeriea told me they did their best to learn some of our food and replicate it, rice was the only thing that tasted like it should though."

"So no burgers?" I asked.

"No burgers."

"Damn."

I had to admit though for alien created rice it was pretty good and tasted enough like it that I would complain; although considering how hungry I was I would have eaten anything.

"Aw crap." I said aloud "We don't have any form of ID here getting jobs won't be easy we'll have to…" I began saying but was interrupted by Ellie holding her hand up and sliding another datapad across the table to me.

"I was going to show you this on the shuttle but since you brought it up, Reyoln showed me them while you were out."

I looked at the pad and saw entire biographies for both Ellie and myself and frowned, looking up at her "What the…how?"

Ellie smiled "Reyoln created them when they chose you to come here and said that since the technology the races used is based on their technology it was easy to upload the information, remember Rob they have been planning all this for a long time."

"I guess, I just never thought it would be this easy." I replied.

"It won't always be this easy, you should know that."

I nodded in reply as I started to read though my new biography. Most of the data was the same as my old life in terms of my qualifications and my age, although my date of birth had been changed to 2157.

"Well it looks like they thought of everything didn't they?" I muttered.

"They have been…" Ellie began repeating again.

"…planning this for a long time, yes I know. Speaking of which why haven't their VI's showed up?" I interrupted

"Their saving power since we don't know how to create anything with the machines here."

"Good idea, besides we should probably be heading back to civilisation anyway."

I activated Reyoln and Azeriea's VI's to thank them and found out that they would shut down the facility until we returned and wished us luck. When we arrived in the hanger I was disappointed to find out that instead of seeing a cool Prothean ship waiting for us there was a small ship that looked like the MSV ships from the game, but at least this one wouldn't arouse any suspicion when we arrived. A quick check of its computer identified it as the MSV Recluse.

Once we were aboard the ship and sat in the cockpit I glanced down at the controls wondering how exactly we were going to get back to civilisation when I felt a tingle in my head, which soon turned into outright, brain melting pain to the point I clutched my head as information flashed through my head.

Luckily it stopped almost as soon as it started and I opened my eyes, seeing Ellie looking at me with fear in her eyes.

"What happened? Are you okay?" she asked.

"Yeah, yeah I'm good. I don't know what the hell happened though, for a second there it felt like my head was going to explode and some weird…stuff flashed through my head and then it was gone." I answered.

It was only when I glanced at the controls again that I realised what had happened "Huh, evidently when they said those beacons contained everything we'd need to survive it included piloting lessons, I know how to fly this."

"You do?" Ellie asked.

"Yeah not everything I don't think, just the basics to get us through the relay and back to civilisation. Makes me wonder what else they put in my head." I replied as I ran my hands over the controls and started the engines.

As we entered space I couldn't believe this was happening, I was in a freakin' spaceship flying through space, how awesome was that! I glanced over at Ellie and judging by the child like expression of wonder on her face she was feeling the same as me. In the distance I could just about make out the Mass Relay and it was huge.

After we passed through the relay the star chart in the ship's computer told showed us that we were in the Calypsos system on the edge of Citadel Space, luckily the Relay wasn't that far away but once we arrived had to jump to the Edolus System and then use that Relay to jump to the Citadel. A journey which the computer approximated would take a good 5 hours totalled, well at least it will give me some time to give Ellie the story of Mass Effect 1 while we travelled.

"And you willingly came here to help stop that!" Ellie said to me once I had finished retelling the story of Mass Effect 1.

"Yep." I nodded with a grin "But come on El take a look at where we are right now. Can you honestly say you ever thought you'd be in a real life ship flying though space!"

Ellie smiled at me then "No and it is amazing but still your putting your life on the line."

"Ellie back on Earth I was putting my life on the line, only difference is that this time next year I will know exactly what is happening, when, where and how it's going to happen and that has got to be an advantage, everything will be fine." I countered as we exited the Relay in the Serpent Nebula.

As we flew towards the Citadel both Ellie and my breath was taken away, it was an amazing sight to behold, as was the Destiny Ascension which let me tell you Ashley's reaction at the beginning of the game, definitely not an overreaction on her part it was gigantic.

As we approached the Citadel I activated the comm system, deciding to copy what Joker said when the Normandy arrived, at least what of it I could remember anyway.

"Citadel control this is the MSV Recluse requesting permission to dock."

"MSV Recluse this is Citadel Control permission to land granted you are clear to land on pad 7 in sector 121."

I was about to ask where that was when the ships autopilot kicked in and started taking us there, with a sigh of relief and letting out a breath I hadn't realised I'd been holding I chuckled "Thanks Citadel Control, Recluse out."

It took us all of about two minutes to dock and glance out at all the other species walking around just outside. I spotted several Turians, a few Volus and a lot of Humans. The gamer inside me jumping up and down at the fact I was sitting on this ship in the Citadel looking at the aliens I'd enjoyed interacting with through my computer monitor back home.

After we had taken a few minutes to adjust to the sights of real life aliens walking around and composing ourselves Ellie and I left our little ship. Unlike in the game where the Normandy had landed on a private dock, we had landed on a civilian dock, which was filled with various species walking around, carrying on like normal.

Making our way through the throngs of people we made it to an elevator and hopped in. It was then that I realised that the elevators here really were as slow as they were in the game and oh my god did it annoy me just as much as it did when playing the game.

However all that changed when the elevator arrived on the Presidium, it was as large and as beautiful and awe inspiring as it was the first time you see it in the game.

"Wow." I muttered as I gazed out over the area.

"Yeah." Ellie whispered "It's amazing, how they managed to accomplish it is just...it's a wonder."

"It certainly is." I replied, shaking myself out of my daze "Come on El, this marks the first day of our new lives."


	4. Chapter 4: One Hell of A First Day

**Author's Note: OK so occasionally I will start these stories like I did with Chapter 1, from the perspective of Rob recording the log on his Omni tool, these will be in italics, you'll see what I mean in this chapter.**

**And sorry about the multiple E-Mails about this chapter. Everytime I posted it the formatting got messed up and then it wouldn't show up in the actual story while appearing in the Manage Stories section, gotta love technology :P.  
><strong>

**Anyway I hope you enjoy it.**

**Chapter Four: One Hell of A First Day **

**BEGIN RECORDING…**

_Okay so uh where did I leave this last time? Oh right we'd just arrived on the Citadel…_

It didn't take me long to realise that the part of the Presidium we were in wasn't included in either of the games since I didn't recognise a thing here. I did however spot a Rapid Transport Terminal and used it to call summon one.

Considering my best bet for a job and getting on Shepard's crew in the future was with C-Sec the Upper Wards seemed like a good place to start and of course Dr Michel's clinic was there too. When the RTS dropped us off at the station near the med clinic the first thing we noticed was that view of the rest of the Citadel and the Serpent nebula.

"This place is huge!" Ellie gasped as she took in the view; even I had to admit it was impressive sight to see.

However our sightseeing was interrupted by the sounds of shouting coming for the larger open area, where Shepard meets Emily Wong in the first game. We both turned to see what was going on and saw a human woman watching on as two Human men argued with each other.

"That looks ugly." I muttered as I started walking over towards them, shuffling through the other onlookers that had gathered, I could make out something about credits...but before I could hear anything else one man took a swing at the other and connected with his jaw.

"You son of a bitch!" The guy who had been punched cursed before retaliating with a right hook.

"Stop it!" The woman yelled, although I still didn't know who she was with.

"Wait here." I instructed Ellie as I got between the two men. "Whoa how about we all stop this and sort this out without a trip to the clinic huh?" I said as I held my arms out to stop the two, thankfully they listened. "OK that's good, so what started this brawl?"

"He stole my credit chit from Flux's." the man who swung the first punch said, pointing and glaring at the second man.

"I did not you liar!" the second man yelled back.

"Colin please calm down." The woman said to the second man, placing a hand on his shoulder. Well at least I had one name.

"Are you sure you didn't take it?" I asked, earning myself a glare from the man.

"What kind of stupid assed question is that! Of course I didn't steal it!" He yelled.

Before I could reply the first man interrupted "Of course you say that you thief, but I know you did."

"Shut up!" Colin yelled as he pushed me out of the way and since I wasn't expecting it fell on my ass while Colin punched the first man, this was not going well.

As I stood up I saw two Turians in C-Sec clothing running towards us but a glimmer of something caught my eye and I turned in time to see the first man pull out a small knife, preparing to stab Colin with it.

"Look out!" I yelled as I moved between the two, feeling pain erupt in my left side. Letting out a grunt I clutched at my side and staggered back before falling to the floor. Glancing down I saw a large red patch soaking through my top and over my hands.

"Son of a bitch." I muttered as I felt someone grab me and looked up to see Ellie looking down at me with concern in her eyes as she laid me down and pulled up my shirt.

"I'm fine." I groaned.

"No you're not this is a pretty deep wound, you need a doctor." Ellie replied.

"I'm already seeing a Doctor." I replied with a grin.

"One with actual medicine." Ellie growled.

"There's a clinic just over there." A distinctively Turian sounding voice said from above me. "I'll help you get there."

When I looked up my heart leapt into my throat so fast I thought it was going to shoot out of my mouth, because standing in front of me was Garrus freakin' Vakerian and despite the fact I'd just been stabbed I was pretty damn excited to see him…I mean it's Garrus for crying out loud! Then the pain snapped me out of my gamer trance and nodded.

"Thanks." I groaned as the two lifted me up as assisted/dragged my ass off towards the clinic. I took a moment to glance over my shoulder and see the first guy being led away by the other Turian officer and another human one, who I guess had responded as well, or heard the commotion and came to investigate towards the stairs leading down to C-Sec, with Colin and his…wife I guess following a few steps behind.

I returned my attention to where I was going and trying to keep cool despite the fact I was being helped by Garrus as we entered the clinic.

"We need some help over here Doctor." Garrus said as the doors closed.

I watched as the red haired doctor rounded the corner, took one look at me motioned to one of the beds.

"Put him here." She said as she went to retrieve some Medigel. "What happened?" she asked as she returned.

"He was stabbed between the 4th and 5th ribs on his left side, I'm not sure if the ribs were caught or not." Ellie answered.

Dr Michel glanced up at her and smiled "You sound like you know what you're talking about." She said as she applied some Medigel to the area and man is that stuff cold, it felt like ice cold water being poured directly into the wound, but it didn't hurt, in fact it was quite nice actually especially when it started numbing the area.

"I'm a surgeon." Ellie answered as she watched the Medigel start sealing the wound.

"Really?" Doctor Michel replied as she looked down at me "You're going to be fine sir, the wound is already closing but I'm going to bandage you up and you're going to be sore for a few days." She smiled.

"Thanks doc and I kind of figured that, it's not the first time I'm been stabbed I'm afraid." I answered, watching as she raised an eyebrow at me.

"Oh I'm a cop." I answered, catching Garrus's mandible twitch slightly, which was interesting. "Anyway…I got stabbed once by a criminal I was trying to catch so it's not my first time dealing with this sort of injury."

"Well you should be more careful in the future officer…" Michel replied, fishing for my name.

"Kane, Robert Kane." I answered "And this is my sister Ellie."

Michel smiled "Pleased to meet you both, although I wish it were under better circumstances. I'm Doctor Chloe Michel"

"Me too." I grinned "Getting stabbed is not fun."

"I would imagine not." Michel smiled "But you should be more careful, it's always a shame to lose more good officers like yourself."

"I'll try Doc if it's a choice between me getting hurt or an innocent I'd rather it be me."

Michel nodded with a smile as she turned to grab some bandages, returning a few moments later and checking the wound.

"OK that looks good; if you could sit up slowly I can get these on you."

With a nodded and a groan I slowly pulled myself up, holding my arms apart so that the good doctor could bandage me up. Got to admit this wasn't exactly how I wanted my first day on the Citadel to go…well at least in terms of getting stabbed. Meeting Doctor Michel and Garrus was a bonus though, hard to imagine a year from now those two…and hopefully me as well will be here with Shepard looking for Tali but that was a long way off from now.

"There you are officer Kane, all done." Chloe said as she finished wrapping me up.

"Thanks Doc, much appreciated." I smiled as I hopped off the bed with a wince, oh yeah getting stabbed sucks.

I saw Garrus looking at me and walked over to him "Thanks for the help." I said to him with a smile, although it was more from geeky joy than anything else.

"You're welcome, Detective Garrus Vakerian, C-Sec." the Turian replied as he extended his Talon "I uh believe this is how you humans do this right?"

I chuckled "Yeah that's it." I replied as I took his talon and shook it "Robert Kane, I imagine you'll want me to come to C-Sec and give you a statement."

"Yes but we can leave it a few days for you to recover." Garrus replied.

"That's okay I'm good." I answered; watching as Garrus's mandibles twitched in what I thought was a smile.

"I had a feeling you were going to say that." He chuckled.

I laughed as well and glanced over my shoulder to see Ellie talking with Doctor Michel and saw her spot me.

"I've got to go give a statement at C-Sec." I told her, watching as she nodded and turned back to thank Doctor Michel and shook her hand.

We said goodbye to Chloe and left the clinic for C-Sec headquarters while I introduced Garrus and Ellie to one another.

* * *

><p>"<em>Hey what are you doing?"<em>

"_I'm recording my diary."_

"_Oh have you got to the good stuff yet?_

"_I just finished retelling the day we first met."_

"_You mean the day I saved your ass. The first of many I might add."_

"_OK first of all you didn't "Save my ass." since I got stabbed, all you did was help me to the Clinic and second I've saved your ass plenty of times since then."_

"_Yeah but I saved your ass first and nothing can ever change that."_

"…_Oh shut up Garrus."_

_"Heh heh."  
><em>

**END RECORDING…**


	5. Chapter 4 5 Some Thoughts, an Interlude

**Author's Note: Hello beloved readers sorry for the almost month long absence from this story a combination of several rewrites of this chapter and the holidays are the cause but I should be back on a fluid pace from now on. Speaking of the holidays I hope you all had a good one and Happy New Year to you all, and of course only 3 months until Mass Effect 3!**

**Now on with the story…**

**Chapter 4.5: Some Thoughts, an Interlude**

…**BEGIN RECORDING…**

_Right if you're reading this version…assuming you are in fact reading it, but even if you're listening to it…well especially if you're listening to it I should explain about the chapter number and title…well the title should be obvious really's it exposition, just some thoughts I had about the time after I got stabbed and when things really started happening, which is why this is numbered Chapter 4.5 and not 5. _

Two weeks had passed since the incident on the Citadel where I was stabbed breaking up an argument between two men in the Wards over an alleged stolen credit chit…I later found out the man had just put it in a different pocket and that it wasn't actually stolen…jackass. Of all the things to get stabbed over…ah well it wasn't all bad though since as a result Ellie and I had met Chloe and Garrus. This Medigel stuff by the way is fantastic, it healed the wound pretty quickly and even the soreness passed after about a week.

Chloe has been great to Ellie and I over the last few weeks; besides being a friend to both of us she gave Ellie a job at the clinic and let us stay with her until we could find our own place, although she did have a small apartment so I was sleeping on the couch, not that it bothered me too much after numerous nights in cars on stakeouts and at my desk during late nights I'm used to roughing it.

And Garrus has been awesome with me. After I went down to C-Sec and gave my statement we got to talking, mostly about the job and some of the cases we had worked during our careers. He really is as cool in real life as his digital counterpart. He even put in a good word for me at C-Sec, getting me an interview with Executor Pallin, the Turian who runs C-Sec. Pallin was at this time…I won't say racist per say more…strongly opinionated and stubborn in his beliefs…or as I simply called him at the time: A Jerk.

I remember walking into his office and feeling more like being in an interrogation than a job interview. Pallin was at the time pretty much the same as he was in game when it came to his views on Humanity that we were impatient and needed to spend more time proving ourselves before we got given anything, which is exactly how he saw me the second I stepped into his office.

Oh I'm sure if I was going in there looking for an ordinary job as an officer that he would have been entirely different but I was there going for Detective, I knew there were a couple of openings thanks to Garrus but the problem was it was a Turian only club at the time, and still mostly is to this day as well I believe, I haven't been back there in a while…but I digress. Something at the time told me that even with Garrus's good word that it wouldn't be enough to sway him.

In fact I remember him giving me his view on Humanity and how we had to earn what we were giving and I listened to him for a long time as he spewed his rhetoric at me for a good twenty minutes or so until in the end I'd had enough and done something that probably should have ruined any chance of getting a job at C-Sec at all by quoting from my file some of the things I had done, silently thanking my Prothean holograms for re-creating that thing for this time while at the same time keeping all the details relatively the same.

I'm going to close this with the last conversation between Pallin and myself during my interview since it's stuck in my mind all this time

After his long winded speech I was pretty fed up and just said "With all due respect Executor, take a look at my file I've already proved myself. It shouldn't matter if I'm Human, Turian, Hanar or even a Volus, the fact is I am a good cop and can do this job and that is all that should matter. Now if you don't want to hire me than that's your decision to make but don't you dare try to talk down what I have accomplished during my career."

Looking back on it that was a really bad thing to say to your potential employer and I wouldn't recommend anybody out there doing it. I remember sitting there in silence for a long time while Pallin just stared at me, part in shock and part in anger.

I was pretty damn sure I'd blown any and all chance I had of working at C-Sec as I sat there. Finally Pallin moved and pulled a large stack of papers up from under his desk and handed them to me.

"Fill these out and take them down to personnel, they'll process it. It'll take a few days to get everything sorted. You start Monday."

I couldn't believe it "I…thank you sir." I remember stuttering out.

Pallin just muttered something as I stood up with the forms and heading for the door before I was stopped by his voice.

"And for future reference _detective _if you ever speak to me like that again I'll fire you so quickly you'll think you were shot out of a turret, do I make myself clear?"

"Yes sir." I replied

And just like that I was a detective for Citadel Security.

…**END RECORDING…**


	6. Chapter 5: And So It Begins

**A.N: OK guys thanks for the reviews of the last chapter, I know it was short but it was more a filler chapter than an actual one, this here is the full chapter.**

**To answer Rev's question about the M rating it was mostly because I knew that I would be writing some graphic scenes like in this chapter and depending on romances maybe a little sex (still haven't decided on that one yet) down the line and figured that kicking off with an M rating would save time instead of constantly switching or writing a warning, despite the potential loss in readers, although I could publish a censored version at some point.**

**But speaking of warnings there is a death in this chapter and scenes of a graphic nature that some readers may not like, personally I don't think it's too bad but I've been watching horror movies since I was like 6 so I'm pretty desensitised to that kind of stuff nowadays :D But if you don't like those sorts of things you have been warned. (Don't worry it's nothing Saw like but…hey that could be a good idea…ah never mind.)**

**Enjoy**

**Chapter 5: And So It Begins…**

…**BEGIN RECORDING…**

_It took me a while to come up with the right title for this chapter but when I really thought about it and looked back over the years this is where everything really started to begin for me in terms of the future. I mean sure we'd been here a few weeks but nothing had really set the wheels of fate turning until now…_

Monday morning came round and so began my first day as a Detective at C-Sec. It was a familiar yet completely strange feeling to me at the same time. On the one hand I was starting a job doing what I loved and knew how to do, yet at the same time working with fellow officers who weren't human which would take some getting used to.

As I entered C-Sec I headed to the reception area where an Asari was sitting behind the desk…I can't remember her name but she greeted me with a warm smile.

"Good Morning." I said "I'm…"

"Detective Robert Kane, yes I know." She smiled as she retrieved something from under her desk and handed it to me "Your identification sir, Executor Pallin wants to see you in his office."

"Thank you." I smiled as I took my I.D and walked towards the stairs. It had surprised me that the Executor's office was in C-Sec and not where it was during Mass Effect 1, so either he hadn't moved there yet or it was something that differed from the game, I wasn't sure. I glanced down at my ID and saw that the picture was the one that was on my file and cursed since it's still not the best picture I've taken in my life.

It didn't take me long to reach Pallin's office and knocked on the door, entering when he called me in. To my surprise and somewhat hope Garrus was in there which made me feel better already.

"You wanted to see me sir?" I asked.

"Yes Kane, right on time first of all welcome to C-Sec, secondly remember that as a member of C-Sec and the first detective of your kind a lot of eyes will be on you and your mess is my mess, do well to remember that."

"Yes sir." I muttered.

"Finally since Vakarian here was the one who vouched for you, he'll be your partner so your screw-ups will be on him too."

_(Such a charming fellow isn't he?)_

I glanced over at Garrus who gave me a small smile and a nod which I returned before glancing back to Pallin who reached into his desk and pulled out a gun and handed it to me "I trust you already have your I.D?"

"Yes sir."

"Good then your all set to go, there is a briefing in ten minutes get settled in at your desk and then get down there." Pallin answered.

With a nod Garrus and I headed for the door as I glanced down at my new pistol, a ECRS Mark II Striker, not bad really.

"So is he always like that?" I asked Garrus once we were out of his office.

"Most of the time." Garrus chuckled "Although a little more than usual today."

"Must still be a little pissed at me for yelling at him the other day." I replied.

"Heh heh maybe, I still can't believe you said that to him." Garrus chuckled. The two of us had become pretty good friends over the few weeks Ellie and I had been here and needless to say working together would not only be awesome but would work well a year from now when we meet up with Shepard.

"Thanks again for putting in a good word for me Garrus; I probably wouldn't have this job if you hadn't."

Garrus smiled…well at least whatever the Turian equivalent is anyway "Your welcome, besides after what you've told me you'd be a great addition to C-Sec and the Detective branch, that's mostly why Pallin hired you I would imagine, he may be opinionated but he knows a good officer when he sees one."

I nodded as we made our way into the Detective area and immediately felt all eyes lock on me and glanced around, seeing every other detective looking at me, one human among a good 20 Turians…yeah not intimidating in the slightest.

"Hi there." I said with a small wave but I didn't get a reply, just a few mumbles and a nod before everybody went back to what they were doing.

"Don't mind them." Garrus whispered as he started walking towards the western side of the room. The layout was pretty traditional with large desks scattered across the room, each desk large enough for two people to sit at, one on either side.

On the desks were two computer monitors, with the holographic keyboards embedded into the desks. As we approached the desk Garrus was heading towards I saw two name plates on either side. DET. GARRUS VAKARIAN was one and DET. ROBERT KANE was the other. _Cool my own nameplate on my first day…sweet!_

"So where's your Omni-Tool?" Garrus asked as we sat down.

"Should I have one?" I asked.

Garrus nodded "Yes, the receptionist should have given it to you when she gave you your I.D."

"Well she didn't." I answered "How long until the briefing?"

"About 5 minutes." Garrus replied as he glanced at his Omni-Tool.

"Cool I've got enough time to run down and see if she has it." I said as I hopped up and jogged towards the door. Luckily I'd only gone a few steps outside the department when I saw the Asari jogging towards us.

"Detective!" she gasped as she came to a stop in front of me "I'm so sorry I forgot to give this to you. It's your standard issue C-Sec Omni-Tool customised for the Detective division. It comes with all the standard Omni-Tool programs: Communication system, Network access and the basic overload program as well as the CSA program."

"CSA?" I asked, watching as she smiled.

"Oh right it stands for Crime Scene Analyser. It's a new software program for C-Sec Detectives that scans a crime scene and highlights things of importance in the area, although it is the first version so…"

I nodded "Still need to do some old fashioned detectiving then."

The Asari chuckled "Afraid so."

"Right, thanks for running it up here." I replied as I slid the device onto my wrist.

"You're welcome Detective and good luck on your first day." She replied as she spun on her heel and headed back the way she had come.

"Thanks." I replied as I too spun around and headed back towards the division. When I arrived the other detectives were heading towards the briefing room so I jogged across the room and entered just behind Garrus, taking a seat next to him as Pallin stood at the front of the room.

"Good morning everyone." He began "First of all I'm sure you've noticed we have a new Detective with us, Robert Kane. His record from back on Earth is exemplary and I'm sure he'll make a fine addition to the division, make him feel welcome."

Well that was different but whatever all I had to do was keep the job for a year and then join up with Shepard, shouldn't be too hard to do.

Pallin began talking about various cases and handing out assignments to the other detectives before finally getting to Garrus and me.

"Vakarian, Kane we just received a call, a Human leapt out of her apartment room window in the wards, that's yours. The info's been sent to your Omni-Tools, get going."

With a nod we left the briefing room and out to the C-Sec cruisers and since I didn't know where the hell we were going, Garrus drove. I glanced down at my Omni-Tool and tapped it, bringing the system online and damn was it impressive, far more advanced than anything we'd had back in 2011 and easier to use as well.

I opened the communications application and read the file Pallin had sent us. The jumper was a Caucasian female in her early thirties, single with no siblings or children and her parents had never left Earth. The scene must not have been far from S-Sec since we arrived there fairly quickly …well either that or Garrus drives like a madman (He does by the way)

With the crowd of C-Sec officers and pedestrians standing around it wasn't hard to figure out where to go. When we finally snaked our way through the throngs of people we were met by a C-Sec officer who let us past the holographic "Police line do not cross" tape.

The victim was covered by a sheet but there was a rather large pool of blood on the ground and I winced, already pretty certain of what I was going to see under the sheet. Both Garrus and I looked up at the building we were standing in front of.

"That's a long way up." Garrus said.

I nodded and glanced down at the body "And a long way down in her case." I said as I knelt down and lifted up the sheet and winced again…oh yeah saw that coming. The side of her face that had hit the ground had unsurprisingly caved in on itself, sending bits of bone and brain matter spraying across a large area of concrete.

As Garrus questioned the C-Sec officers on the scene I studied the body. She was in her early thirties from what I could tell with long brown hair. One thing that I had spotted immediately was that she was dressed in a suit, work clothes maybe? With a shrug I opened my Omni-Tool and ran the CSA program, watching as it scanned the woman's body and the surrounding area as it took a blood sample and highlighted body parts and blood around the area. I was instantly reminded of the ARI program from the Heavy Rain game and wondered if whoever had made it had dimension jumped like I had, played it and figured out how to make it here, but shook that thought off as to obvious it was just a coincidence, had to be.

I glanced up from the wrist mounted computer to see Garrus walking towards me, when I spotted something he hadn't…

"STOP!" I yelled, watching as Garrus froze where he was.

"What? What is it?" The Turian asked.

I pointed at the ground just in front of him "Your about to step on her eye."

Garrus glanced down and winced at where the eyeball was sitting on the ground "That is disgusting." He muttered as he stepped around it.

"Tell me about it. I really don't want to move this body, rather let the Coroner handle it." I replied.

"Good idea." Garrus nodded "The woman's name is Christine Winslow, 32 years old. No siblings or children, lives alone. Born in a place called Aspen on Earth, her parents still live there. She works as a receptionist at the Embassy."

"So a career woman then." I said aloud "I assume she lived in the building?"

"Yeah on the 21st floor, apartment 45." Garrus answered.

With a nod I stood up, watching as a green skinned Salarian wearing a white lab coat with Coroner on it made his way through the observing crowd and walked through the holo-tape.

"Ah Detective Vakarian, good morning."

"Morning Doctor Rola, how's things?"

"Good, very good." The Doctor replied as he glanced over at me "Don't know you do I?"

I smiled "No, Robert Kane."

The Salarian smiled "Ah the new Detective, heard about that. A pleasure to meet you."

"You too Doc." I grinned as Rola crouched down next to the body and sighed.

"So young…what a waste." He muttered "Will take a while to recover body and parts." He added as he glanced up at the two of us.

"We'll go check out her apartment then," Garrus said as he turned and walked towards the building.

"It was nice to meet you Doc." I added as I followed my partner, smiling at little at that realisation Garrus Vakarian was my partner…awesome.

We stepped into the elevator and picked the 21st floor, although I was thinking about the woman. I guess Garrus must have seen the thoughtful expression on my face.

"What are you thinking?"

"I don't know yet just…I don't know." I muttered as the elevator stopped on the floor. Luckily one of the two C-Sec officers on the scene, another Asari was standing by the apartment door.

"Detectives." She greeted us as we entered, giving her a nod each in reply.

The apartment was really nice and well furnished. The walls were a metallic grey but were covered with various paintings, some clearly alien and a few human in design depicting various alien worlds, as well as one of Earth.

Garrus headed to the east of the apartment while I went west into the living area. The place was kept neat and tidy, not a single thing out of place or out of the ordinary. I walked over to the open window and glanced outside, peeking down, seeing the crowd of people, the body and Doctor Rola below. Leaning back in I used CSA to scan the window, watching as it detected some prints. It was then I realised that when I had scanned the scene down stairs it had also taken the victims finger prints as well as a blood sample, very cool if I did say so myself. There were only one set of prints on the window and either side of it, the victims.

The kitchen was one of those ones that was a smaller area just off the living room. With all the usual appliances and a dinner table that could seat four people. I frowned at what I saw sitting on it.

"Hey Garrus!" I called, hearing his footsteps approaching from behind me.

"Well there's nothing out of the ordinary in the rest of the apartment, looks like a suicide to me."

"I'm not so sure." I replied.

"What makes you say that?"

"Well for one there's no suicide note."

"Not everybody writes one, I've worked one a few where there hasn't been a note." Garrus answered.

"Hmmm." I nodded "Two, statistically and psychologically speaking women…human women anyway don't normally tend to take violent ways of ending their own life, usually choosing poison or drugs or something…gunshots, hanging and swan dives out of windows are rare."

"Rare but not unheard of I would imagine." Garrus said.

"There have been a few. But let me ask you something if woke up one morning and decided to kill yourself, be it leaping out of a 21st floor window or whatever would you get dressed in your work clothes and make yourself breakfast?" I replied as I motioned to the food on the table.

Garrus frowned "Probably not, but take a look around, there's no sign of a struggle, the door wasn't forced open, nothing is out of place."

I nodded "And the only fingerprints I found on and around the open window are the victims."

"There you go then, suicide." Garrus answered.

Despite the fact she had made breakfast and dressed in her work clothes, something that told me she had no intention of jumping the rest of the evidence was telling a different story I had to admit the lack of any signs of struggle, or attempts to stop herself from going out the window it did look like a suicide.

"You're probably right but we're not going to find anything else here , let's head back down and see if the Doctor has anything for us."

He didn't but told us that he would contact us when the autopsy had been completed. With nothing else to learn at the scene we made our way to the Embassy to interview some of Miss Winslow's colleagues, all of whom told us the exact same thing. That Christine Winslow was a happy, caring employee, they were all shocked at the news.

As we were heading back to C-Sec I watched as the Citadel whizzed by in a blur.

"I don't get it Garrus everybody at the Embassy said she was a normal, happy woman that showed no signs of depression, so what would possess her to wake up today and kill herself?"

Garrus shrugged "You're the psychologist, you tell me."

I gave a shot chuckle "If I would, I could. There's only two things I can think of, either she was depressed and was really, really good at hiding it or someone killed her and made it look like a suicide."

Garrus nodded "Maybe but again we saw the same room I did, there was…"

"…No signs of struggle, I know." I sighed "Hopefully the M.E can tell us more."

Once we arrived back at C-Sec Garrus went over what evidence our CSA programs had gathered while I had the unpleasant task of contacting Miss Winslow's parents and informing them of their daughter's death, needless to say they didn't take it well and told me the same thing that her co-workers had, that their daughter showed no signs of depression or a desire to take her own life, even telling me that they had spoken to her the day before last and she seemed happy, talking about how she was looking forward to her vacation in a few weeks so that she could go back to Earth and visit them, adding more fuel to the doubts in my head about this case.

Unfortunately a few hours later Dr Rola called us with his results, all signs pointed to a suicide, which was how he was going to rule it.

"I still don't think she killed herself Garrus." I said as I glanced over at him from across my desk.

"I know what everybody has said, that she showed no signs or desire to do it but all the evidence says she did." Garrus replied.

I sighed and rubbed my hands across my face "I know, I know." I muttered and a part of me had to agree. People can be very good at hiding how they feel if they really want to and despite my doubts I had to go with what the evidence said and nodded.

"So Suicide?" Garrus asked.

"Suicide." I repeated as I finished typing and signing my report before sending it off with Garrus's to Pallin.

_Looking back on it now I really wish I had followed my instincts back then, maybe if I had a few more women wouldn't have died but considering I see Shepard heading this way I'll have to explain that a little later, so for now:_

_To be continued…_

…**END RECORDING…**


	7. Chapter 6: Who Are You?

**Hello everyone I'm back! Sorry for the lack of new chapters to this story had to move house and it took them 3 weeks to get the internet connected…Grrrr. Hopefully there will be more frequent updates while I speed run Mass Effect 1&2. And of course ME3 is just around the corner, has everybody played the demo yet? **

**Rev asked me about the feedback forum I setup to reply and why I wasn't using it, truth is I forgot about it but I will start using it again. But enough about me, on with the story…**

**Chapter 6: Who are you?**

It had been two weeks since the Winslow suicide and since then there had been 4 more suicides, all women in their early thirties, all of them single with good jobs and all of them showed no signs of depression or desires to end it all and yet there was no relation to the other victim, they took place in different Wards and all the evidence pointed to suicide and yet I just knew they were murdered, now if only I could prove it.

It was early morning at C-Sec and everybody else had gone home but I was sure my murder theory was right and that there was something, somewhere we'd missed, which is why I was currently going through every crime scene image and video footage we had trying to find it. Luckily, thanks to holographic keyboards and touch screen displays it was each to flick through each image. I watched as the images passed by, not really seeing anything in particular until I spotted something that made me return to the previous image.

The image reversed, to a scene from the latest suicide. Everything in it was pretty standard as far as crime scenes go. But the thing that drew my attention was the crowd, specifically one person standing in the crowd.

I frowned as I looked at the man's image. He was a human male in his late 30s early 40s with slick black hair wearing a suit. It wasn't that the man stood out for any particular reason it was just that I was sure I had seen him somewhere before but I couldn't remember where.

With a yawn I rubbed my eyes and looked across the room, seeing the entrance to the briefing room and remembered the large display in there. Standing up I walked across the room into it and turned the display on before bring up all the images with crowds in and that was when I spotted him again, in every crowd at every scene. It had to be him.

Opening my Omni-Tool I brought up the communications application and picked Garrus's entry.

"Hello?" My friend's sleepy voice came through the holographic device.

"Hey, it's me I got a break in the case, get down here." I said.

"What?" Garrus muttered as I heard shuffling before a grumble "It's three in the morning."

"Huh? Oh so it is but I got a break in the case so get down here."

"What kind of break?" Garrus asked.

"A suspect." I answered with a grin. There was a long silence before Garrus sighed.

"OK I'll be right there…I assume you're at C-Sec?"

"Yeah."

"Alright I'll see you soon…and if you're wrong about this suspect I will kill you for getting me up this early." Garrus replied as he ended the call.

By the time Garrus had arrived I had already started a search for our mystery guy, although I had dozed off at my desk after I had started the search. I know this because of the smack to the back of my head my Turian partner gave me when he arrived.

"Ow." I muttered as I rubbed my head.

"You woke me up, it's only fair." Garrus grinned "So you said you had a suspect?"

I nodded and showed him the image of the man I had seen "He's in the crime scene photos." I said.

"So? There are a lot of people in this photo."

"True but he's in at least one at every crime scene."

At this Garrus raised an eyebrow…uh…well the Turian equivalent anyway. "That's unusual."

"Tell me about it." I replied as I pointed to my screen "I'm running a facial recognition search now but no luck so far."

Garrus and I spent an hour going over the little evidence we had again while we waited, mostly to kill time before we both fell asleep at our desks until the other officers started to arrive.

Unfortunately the search had yielded no results. To make matters worse a call came in saying that there was another suicide and this one wasn't far from C-Sec, at least it didn't take us long to get there.

"Alright you take the apartment and I'll take the crowd." I said to Garrus, who nodded as he walked over to the coroner. I started scanning the crowd with my eyes as I made my way over towards them and waved one of the C-Sec officers over.

"Yes Detective?" The Asari asked.

"Were you one of the first on the scene officer?" I asked.

"Yes sir, my partner officer Trenlan went over to the body and called it in while I dealt with the crowd."

"Good, good. Did you happen to see this man by any chance?" I asked as I brought my suspect's image up on my Omni-Tool.

"Actually I did, he's right over there." The officer replied as she glanced over to the far end of the crowd where I spotted the man, who luckily was watching Garrus and the Coroner and not me.

"OK he's a suspect so I need you to start moving some of these people away as discreetly as you can."

"Yes sir." The officer replied as I casually started walking towards the man. I could see Garrus turn around and started walking towards us and the entrance to the apartment and that was when the man caught me looking right at him and I could tell from the look in his eyes that he knew that I knew. Before I could react he took off in a sprint.

"Crap." I cursed as I started running "GARRUS THAT'S HIM!" I yelled, already seeing my partner running after the suspect, and man was he fast. Despite being further away from the suspect than me he had closed the distance between himself and the fleeing human.

Popping open my Omni-Tool I brought up the radio "This is Detective Kane; I am in pursuit of a homicide suspect with my partner Detective Vakerian. We are heading east towards the markets. Suspect is a male human, approximately 6'5 in height, Caucasian with dark brown hair, wearing a black suit, white undershirt and black pants. Any officers in the area to assist, suspect is considered armed and dangerous."

I watched as the man darted round a corner with Garrus hot on his heels. With a growl I increased my speed and turned the corner a few seconds later. Ahead of me I could see Garrus and our suspect darting though the crowd.

"C-SEC! GET OUT OF THE WAY!" I yelled as various civilians started crossing my path. Luckily the suspect made a left and started running down a flight of stairs, do doubt in an attempt to reach the Rapid Transit Station a few levels below.

"This is Kane, suspect still on foot heading towards the RTS terminal on level 23." I said through my Omni-Tool, already seeing several other officers joining the pursuit.

I ran a little further until I came to a railing and glanced over, smiling when I realised that the suspect would pass right below me, all I had to do was get the timing right. Of course if I didn't not only would it hurt like hell but I ran the risk of taking Garrus out instead.

With a shrug I climbed over the railing and waited…

Time seemed to slow down as I watched our man sprint towards us, his focus entirely on Garrus and the other officers chasing him down. I knew it would only be a few seconds before he was below me and I needed to drop just before that in order to land on him. Taking a deep breath I jumped.

Despite the fact I knew it was only a single level drop I wondered if it would still be enough to break my ankle. A thought which quickly left me when I hit the ground and luckily for me our suspect too who grunted as the air was driven out of him.

"You're under arrest." I grinned as I twisted his arms behind him back. My first arrest as a C-Sec officer, and I did it in style too.

"What the hell was that?" Garrus said as he and the other officers came to a halt beside us.

"Whatever do you mean partner?" I asked.

"I chase this guy this whole time and you just drop out of the sky and take him down."

"Well I wasn't planning on it." I replied "Besides if you hadn't been chasing him, he wouldn't have been looking behind him and seen me perched up there waiting."

A small grin formed on Garrus's face "You have a point I mean I saw you up there so I created the distraction for you by shouting at him."

_If you're listening to this thinking that I didn't mention Garrus shouting, that's because he didn't…well I didn't hear him anyway but since he still claims he did to this day I'm not going to argue with him over it._

Shaking my head I hauled our suspect to his feet "I'm innocent!" The man yelled.

"Oh well then I'm so sorry, I'll just let you go then." I replied.

"Damn right you will."

"But first let me ask you a question genius, if you're so innocent why'd you run?"

"Screw you." The man snarled.

I just laughed "That's what I thought." I scanned him with my Omni-Tool to get a DNA sample before looking over at Garrus.

"So do you want to take him to C-Sec or head back to the crime scene?"

"I'll take the crime scene, you take him." Garrus replied.

"Fine by me." I replied "See you back there."

Garrus nodded as I handed our guy over to another C-Sec officer who had just arrived with a cruiser to transport him. I assumed Garrus or one of the other officers must have requested it when I landed on him. Another officer, another Turian climbed in the back with him leaving me to take the seat up front.

It wasn't a long ride back to C-Sec but the paperwork I had to fill out when I booked him in, along with his refusal to give us his name more than made up for it. I put him in an interrogation room and watching him through the mirror. The longer I kept him waiting the more frustrated and angry he seemed to get…So I decided that the best course of action was to let him wait a little while longer.


	8. Author's Note

Hey Everyone sorry it's been so long since I last updated this story, reason being for some reason I could only login to fanfiction from my phone, where I couldn't update stories. Strangely it seems to be a Windows 7 issue and since it's been too long already I'm not going to hunt down and figure out what's causing it, instead I dual-booted the pc with XP and I can login in there luckily.

I wanted to thank all of you for your reviews and let you know that this story isn't dead so keep an eye out for new chapters soon.


	9. Chapter 7: The Interrogation

_Alright so here we are back again and…holy crap has it been that long since I last recorded an update? Who knew trying to prepare for a galactic war took up so much time? Alright I need to remind myself exactly what I did record on this thing…_

_Okay let's see for the benefit of those of you who have taken as long as break between listening to the last chapter and this one as I did recording it in the first place I will recap what has happened so far._

_So I started out on Earth in the past, way back in the year 2011 as a detective in England with a background in psychology. I'm also a huge gamer, of which Mass Effect is one of my favourite game series. Anyway it turns out that the whole multiverse theory is true, I know this because I found myself, along with my older sister Ellie, who is a medical doctor in one. Specifically one in which the Mass Effect Universe actually exists...of course for those of you in this universe it's normal for you so really me saying this now has no impact on you…so I should have said that I came from a universe different to yours…confused? Don't worry about it, I've been here five years now and I still get confused._

_Anyway I was brought here by two surviving Protheans…Reyoln and Azeriea who said that I was "The best candidate to help prevent the Reapers from destroying all life in the galaxy." So no pressure huh? _

_What they actually meant was that I was to help Commander Shepard help stop them. I'm sure by now you all know who Shepard is…and probably myself and the rest of the crew, but that will come much later in this here diary of mine. So it turns out that Reyoln and Azeriea, along with a few other Protheans were conducting classified research on alternate realities/parallel dimensions etc on a planet cut off from the rest of the Mass Relay Network, they survived the last Reaper purge. Their research eventually turned to time travel, and although, for reasons that I have never understood they were unable to reverse time in this reality they managed to do it in another reality, my reality…and here I am today._

_After Ellie and I arrived we had to find jobs, Ellie got a job working at a clinic with our friend Dr Chloe Michel, who we met after I got stabbed breaking up a fight between two guys on our first day on the Citadel while I got a job at C-Sec with a Turian named __Garrus Vakarian. Our first case was a woman who had committed suicide, at least that's what we it appeared to be, however over the course of a few weeks several more women had also killed themselves, and yet all evidenced suggested that none of the women had any reason to do so._

_Garrus and I had no leads on the case until I realised that one man had been captured in the crime scene photos at every scene, including the last scene we had been called out to. We managed to catch him, where I took him back to C-Sec while Garrus returned to process the crime scene, and that is where we find ourselves now humble listeners (Or readers if you have a digital version, although seriously get the audio version it's much better…and you know if I manage to survive this upcoming war I could probably use the cash…)_

_Anyway on with the story…_

**Chapter 7: The Interrogation**

I sat in the chair with my feet up on the desk watching my suspect through a two-way mirror and I didn't need to be a criminal psychologist to tell the man had anger issues, the way he'd been pacing the room, yelling and chair throwing was a pretty big tell. Although having said that if someone had locked me in a room and then left me for an hour and a half I'd be a little pissed off too.

I heard the door slide open and glanced over my shoulder to see Garrus walk in, his eyes glancing through our side of the window as the man walked up to it and glared through.

"You think this is funny you sons of bitches!" he yelled.

"He's angry, what did you say to him?" Garrus asked.

"Nothing." I answered with a shrug.

"Well you must have said something."

I shook my head "Nope, I haven't even been in there yet."

Garrus frowned and looked at his Omni-Tool. "But you've been back at least an hour and a half.

"I have indeed."

"So what have you been doing all that time?"

"Just sitting here." I answered. "I figured that with this guy's DNA that I'd wait for you to get back, tell me you found something at the crime scene and we'd be done."

Instead of Garrus confirming my hopes, silence was all I got in way of a reply and turned to look up at him, a frustrated expression on his face.

"Aw you're about to tell me you didn't find anything aren't you?" I sighed.

The Turian nodded "Just like the others."

I ran a hand over my face and shook my head in disbelief "Alright then I guess we do this the hard way." I muttered as I stood up.

"So did you manage to find anything while I was busy going over that crime scene or were you busy sitting you your ass the whole time?" Garrus asked, as we made our way towards the interrogation room.

"I did actually, although it wasn't much." I answered as I activated my Omni-Tool "Apparently his name is Alexander Reynolds and he arrived on the Citadel the day before the first suicide."

Garrus glanced at my Omni-Tool and then up at me "And?"

I shrugged "And…that's it, there's nothing else on this guy, I checked it's like before he came to the Citadel the guy didn't exist."

Garrus sighed "Well this case hasn't been easy up until now so we shouldn't really be surprised that it wouldn't change now."

Unfortunately I had to agree with my partner as we stepped into the room.

"Well it's about fucking time!" Mr. Reynolds yelled "I've been in here for two fucking hours!"

"An hour and a half actually." I replied casually as I leaned against the wall, ignoring the broken chair to my left, which had bent when Reynolds tossed it across the room earlier. "I'm sure you remember my partner Detective Vakarian."

Garrus and "Mr Reynolds" glared at each other, each sizing the other up, although who in their right mind would want to have a stare down content with Garrus is either crazy or has a death wish if you ask me.

"Take a seat Mr Reynolds." I said, motioning to one of the chairs in the room.

"Why am I here? You have no right to keep me here."

"I've already told you why you're here sir; you're a suspect in a several suspicious deaths." I replied.

"And I already told you, I didn't kill anyone."

Garrus snorted "And we're just supposed to believe you? Sit down."

Reynolds glared at Garrus for a moment before reluctantly taking a seat in the chair on the opposite side of the table I was on while Garrus remained standing, leaning against one of the walls.

I linked my Omni-Tool into one of the monitors in the room and pulled up the images of all the women from our cases and listed off their names.

"All these women have apparently killed themselves, all of them within the last 3 weeks, the first of which happened the day after you arrived on the Citadel."

"So what? That doesn't prove anything?"

"No it doesn't." I replied as I tapped on my Omni-Tool, bringing up the images of him at every crime scene. "But this does. Why were you there? I mean being at one or two, sure but each and every one of them, shortly after they took place and all of them in different parts of the Citadel? I don't buy it. How about you Garrus, do you buy it?"

"Not a chance." Garrus replied "So why'd you do it?"

"You can't charge me, you don't have any proof." Reynolds said, as he stood up, preparing to leave.

"His right Rob, we can't charge him."

"No, your right we can't, well at least not for the women…not yet anyway." I grinned before turning back to Reynolds. "But we can hold you for at least 24 hours and I can charge you for something else."

"Like what?" Reynolds said.

I smiled as I pointed to the broken chair "Vandalism and destruction of police property."

"I want a lawyer." Reynolds growled as he sat down.

"That's your right sir." I answered calmly as I turned to look at Garrus "You mind taking him to a cell?"

Garrus shook his head "No problem." He replied as he nodded towards the door "Come on."

While Garrus took Reynolds down I returned to my desk, considering our next action and running another check on Reynolds and going back over his arrival information. A smile forming on my face as Garrus returned.

"Please tell me you have good news." Garrus muttered as he sat down "I'm sick of not having anything to go on with this investigation."

"I think I do. We found nothing that relates to our Mr Reynolds or our victims on the station right?"

Garrus nodded "So?"

"So we didn't check off the station. He came here from Earth, as did all of our victims." I answered.

"That doesn't prove much, I mean you're from Earth aren't you?"

"Well…yeah."

"And we already checked the victims histories, they didn't know each other either." Garrus replied.

I sighed "Well maybe there's something we missed, something back on Earth that isn't here."

Garrus shook his head but remained silent "Maybe." Although if he actually agreed with me or was just saying it to save calling me an idiot I didn't know.

I spent the next several hours going through every computer file I could find on everyone, trying to find something, anything to help give us a hit as to what the hell was going on here. Garrus meanwhile had gone back do to interrogate your suspect.

As I was going through one of our victim's files another face I had seen somewhere before appeared in a holo-image in her bio, which had been taken at a company party. It was of a middle aged man, with a streak of grey running through his hair. He was tagged as Ryan Davis, CEO of Thunder Dynamics. Frowning, I opened up a different victim's file and saw the same man in an extract of a news article about the former company she had worked for, although this listed him as Alexander Thompson, CEO of Tykon Technology. On a hunch I went through the employment histories of our other victims and their bosses. And lo and behold there was the same man, still their boss but under a different name and different company.

As I went through the companies history's, all of them were into researching Biotics in humans, all of which had been closed down due to unethical experimentation, only for a new company to pop up a year or so later doing the same thing under a different name, with the same man in charge, that was the link we'd been looking for.

Coping everything I had to my Omni-Tool I rushed down to the interrogation rooms, where I heard Reynolds yelling at Garrus that he was wasting his breath, since he hadn't done anything, despite the fact his lawyer was busy telling him not to say a word. Both of them turned to look at me when I entered the room and sat down opposite Garrus and brought up the image of our shady boss.

"You recognise him?" I asked.

"Should I?" Reynolds countered.

"You tell me." I replied. "His name is Ryan Davis; he was the former CEO of Thunder Dynamics before they were closed down." I paused as I pulled up an older image "…And Alexander Thompson, CEO of Tykon Industries before that too was closed down." I continued pulling up every image and name I had as I went down the list.

"So what does that have to do with me?" Reynolds asked when I had finished.

"All these women worked as this man's receptionist. All of them at different companies he ran. Companies that performed unethical experiments on humans, all under different names, himself included. All of those women are now dead, and you were outside all of their homes at their time of death, do you really need to me spell it out for you?"

Reynolds smiled at me "Humour me."

Garrus snarled, and for a minute I thought the Turian was going to leap over the desk and beat the crap out of the guy, but he didn't. I just returned his smile with one of my own "Fine. I think this man is about to start another company; pick up where he left off. But he was scared that his former employees would recognise him and tell the authorities, so he hired you to kill them."

"You don't have to answer that." The lawyer said.

Reynolds grinned "That's an interesting story but even if it were true, you can't prove it."

"Don't say another word." The lawyer said to his client "Look we both know you have nothing, and this destruction of property charge is ridiculous and one I will get dismissed, along with both of your badges. We're done here." He added as he stood up.

I smirked "Your free to leave whenever, but he can't, especially since I can prove it. You see while I was doing this research, this man came into C-Sec and cut a deal, it's why I wasn't here when my partner Detective Vakarian here started this interrogation. According to him, he told you that he had a change of heart and didn't want to kill them, but you flew off the handle and killed them anyway. He's recording a statement right now."

"Don't say a wo…" the lawyer started saying but Reynolds interrupted him as the smile slowly faded from his face "That rat bastard, he didn't tell me shit!" he yelled "He wanted those women dead and I did what I was hired to do, so you tell that son of a bitch that I'm not going to let him sell me out, if I'm going down I'll make sure he goes down with me."

I smiled as I stopped the recording on my Omni-Tool "Why Garrus, I do believe that was a confession."

Garrus grinned "Sounded like one to me." He said as he stood up and walked over to the intercom, summoning another officer to take Reynolds back to his cell.

"That was good work finding that guy, but we're not really going to cut a deal with him are we?" Garrus asked as we returned to our desks.

"There's no deal to cut, he's not here." I replied.

"But you just said that…" then paused "You lied to him, he never came and made that statement did he?"

"No he did not." I chuckled "But I figured that if he thought he had been sold out that he'd fly off the handle, and I was right."

Garrus laughed "That's good, and at least we got a confession so those women and their families will get the justice they deserve."

I nodded in agreement "Yeah, but that still leaves his employer."

Garrus nodded "Well if everything you dug up is true then he's probably on Earth and since we have no jurisdiction there we'll have to forward what we have there and hope they come up with something."

"Yeah, hopefully they'll find him and stop him before he starts up again." I replied. "So, do you think all our cases will be like this?"

"Maybe, I just hope we have more evidence next time." Garrus replied with a laugh.

"I'll drink to that." I replied with a grin "But since I'm the one that found his boss, you're buying."


	10. Author's Note 1

Hello Readers,

So having read though the last chapter and the chapters I had planned to follow it, I'm not really happy with they are or where I see it going, which left me at a crossroads (And is a reason why there hasn't been as quick a chapter post as I would like.) While I tried to figure out a way to make it work I started coming up with another story, which I think will work better in the long run and be a little different from the others in some ways so I will be abandoning this story and re-launching it.

Although Robert's backstory will change and Ellie will be renamed the beginning of the story will remain the same since I like the whole Prothean idea, and like many of you said in your reviews was something different and unique. It will still take place a year before the first game, however as I'm sure you've noticed Ellie hasn't made an appearance in a while and that was part of the reason I didn't like where it was going, since I couldn't really figure out what to do with her until the events of ME 1 but I didn't want to leave her out of it until then either.

With the new story idea I've come up with she'll play a larger role than she currently has, also most of the other ideas I had have pretty much been done by other people and were too similar to what I wanted to do.

For those of you that actually like this story I apologise but I hope you'll take a look at the re-launch and enjoy it just as much as you seemed to be enjoying this version.

The story will be called **Mass Affected: Reborn **and with a bit of luck will be up at some point tomorrow. When it is up I will post the link in here for those that may miss it.

Thanks and I hope to hear from you all in Reborn.

-Kinvarus


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